Chapter 17: Thrill Wakes Up
[Lewis Blake POV]:
[12 km from the Sun, Space]:
From a distance, a caped figure in gold had had his back to the planet Earth, his arms outstretched, as if awaiting applause.
[Reference Image]:
While in space, Lewis made some alterations to his suit. He now had golden boots, a golden cape, wrist cuffs and a belt with a lit "S" in capital lettering. The red of his suit had gotten a few tones and shades added, to give it a more realistic feel to it. The star around the "S" on his chest lit similarly to the lit "S" on the belt buckle. And to top it off, Lewis added fine etchings and linings throughout the suit, boots included, in reference to a certain Man of Steel — because Henry Cavill's Superman suit was lit.
[Reference Image]:
At his holster, Lewis' hybridized kinetic-plasma blaster also received an upgrade. Using his own ingenuity and imagination, plus his knowledge of Star Wars and lightsabers, Lewis created a kinetic-plasma hybridized saber, one that he could power via his X-gene ability, Plasma Manipulation. He could also use his energy manipulation to enhance each swing or blaster shot. He hasn't even mentioned his blaster/saber's psionic mode, where he can have it run on psychic energy.
[Reference Image]:
His blaster-saber also had solar mode, where it'll fire ionized, amplified solar energy strong enough and fast enough to wound even Lewis… Or, at least, make him hurt. He tested it. It works.
'The only issue is that that mode draws on a lot of power, and my solution? These,' Lewis thought, pulling out 7 white crystals with a clear sheen and golden tints, each no bigger than Lewis' pinky. 'One of the most overpowered crystals ever forged. Just one of these crystals has enough power to power the world for 850 years, by my calculations — and I've got 7 of them.'
It took Lewis 10.5 days to forge them. They were essentially compressed, hardened and crystallized suns. The process by which he used to make them was one he invented because he was bored. Unfortunately, it was so difficult to make as the Sun was a fiery ball of plasma that didn't want to be transfigured, so he wasn't able to make more of them in time for his little space expedition.
'I can only use them in emergencies,' Lewis thought, carefully putting them in his secure utility belt. 'But I have no intentions of using them anytime soon… Speaking of rarity, that guy has yet to speak to me in that last 192 hours. Is he scheming something?'
By 'that guy,' Lewis was referring to his alter ego, the persona known as "Thrill." Thrill was to Lewis what Void was to Sentry — only, remove the evil factor and replace it with intrusive thoughts, a deep-seated curiosity for all things that pump adrenaline and absolutely no inhibitions. He was basically what would happen if you gave a 4-year-old boundless power, enhanced his curiosity by a 1,000% factor, turned that 4-year-old into a chaos junky and unleashed him upon the Earth.
'Thankfully, I left Earth as soon as I woke up, so Thrill didn't have the time to cause any trouble,' Lewis thought privately. 'He's not really bad to deal with; he's more of a newborn than anything at all, honestly. He's actually been rather silent. It's actually a degree concerning — At least, before, I would be able to hear his thoughts. Now, I can't even do that… Is he plotting something?'
The thought gave Lewis pause.
'That is hopefully not the case,' Lewis thought, shaking himself from the thought. Even so, he couldn't shake the feeling that certain conditions were being met but he wasn't entirely certain for what. 'OMNIS, bring up my status.'
[Commanded Acknowledged! Fetching Status]:
[Name]: Lewis Blake
[Species]: Homo Cosmicus Sapiens Ascendens
[Metagene]: Premature Evolutionary Metagene Expression
[X-Gene 1]: Ability Identification / Sense (Alpha level)
[X-Gene 2]: Limitless Singular Amplification (Omega)
[Mutate 1]: Plasma Manipulation
[Power Set 1]: Captain Comet (Mid Stage)
[Power Set 2]: The Void (Restricted — Early Stage)
[Power Set 3]: Sentry (Mid Stage)
The holographic text of Lewis' status shone behind his visor in fiery gold glowing text. It was a system that Lewis designed to quantify his abilities. Unlike traditional systems that measured in groups like strength, speed and whatnot, this one measured it on a more general basis.
'It took me a few hours to do it, but I did. Also, my Captain Comet power set has gone up a stage, and so has my Sentry power set. Both were only low stages when I first began my sun dip — Now, they're both on mid stages.' Lewis thought, privately impressed. 'As I am now, I am on par with Henry Cavill Superman around the end of the Man of Steel in terms of physicality, though I am most certain much faster.'
Thinking of how it's been 14.36 weeks of near sun-dipping, Lewis thought if he should go ahead to lengthen his quest.
'It's not like I'm getting much stronger now that my strength has gotten to this degree — I mean, I am, but very slowly. Everything is much slower progression the stronger I become. I'll need an external catalyst to make any truly reality breaking progress in that department,' Lewis thought to himself, eventually deciding on a course of action. Backtracking from the Sun, Lewis tracked the nearest star system, his attention clear… Until something caught his attention. "What's this?"
[Reference Image]:
Looking down at Earth, Lewis saw his clones, but he was focusing on Luke, and how he was battling Sentinels. Deciding to intervene, Lewis raised his palm, a single, baseball-sized ball of golden light hovering off. 'He shouldn't feel too bad that I decided to interfere, right?' Lewis thought before, with a single finger, shot the beam at light speed.
Unfortunately, Lewis didn't get the opportunity to appreciate his work, as no sooner had he released the beam, had he felt his body lose control of itself. He felt his consciousness retreat into the one recesses of his mind, as an outside entity took over.
Thrill had awoken, and he seemed to have his eyes fixated on 3 presences on the Blue side of the Moon. And, without a word, faster than light, he flew in that general direction…
[Thrill POV]:
The earliest thing he remembered was the thirst. Even from before the great bang and before light invaded the dark, Thrill remembered the thirst.
For power or for blood, at first he knew not. Just that he was thirsty for something. Unfortunately, he had no idea what.
And life came to be, and with it, adventure. And it was then that he knew what it was he thirsted for — The High of everything. The rush. The thrill.
That was what he sought.
Unfortunately, despite being older than gods, Thrill, as he subconsciously named himself, was only a consciousness — And a consciousness without a physical form couldn't experience…Well, thrills.
It was only when one particular soul was born that the consciousness that was Thrill finally gained autonomy —- Or, rather, the possibility of autonomy.
He'd do something different than watch life evolve over eons — He chose his host. Or rather, his host chose him.
Unfortunately, Thrill remained dormant within the human body whose name was Lewis for 18 long years before he could wake — and even then, the human kept him caged and suppressed, as he slowly grew stronger.
Ironically, what the human hadn't known was that as they got stronger, so too would Thrill — and every decision that was made by human that caused his heart to race gave Thrill a chance to take over, if only briefly.
And that was exactly what he did.
[5 Minutes Later, Blue Side of The Moon, Apocalypse's Sanctuary]:
[Lewis Blake POV]:
Coming back to himself, Lewis stood atop a mountain of corpses, all were headless, and, by their absence of heads, it could be said that they were disintegrated away, no longer existing.
And around him were ruins of a highly advanced city — One not on Earth, but on the Moon…
"What the—?" Lewis took in his environment before he noticed a battered and bruised Apocalypse hovering across from him, his armour in tatters and his body complete with ugly wounds. Some of his bones were bent unnaturally at specific angles and his ribs were open and projected outwardly like jagged limbs.
"Y-you—" Apocalypse tried to yell through his dislocated jaw, the rage evident in his eyes. "You'll end you, Sapien!"
As he charged forward, Apocalypse turned his right hand into a blade, but Lewis faster than anything Apocalypse could have even tried to ocularly catch, dodged each swing. And when he became evident he was faster, Apocalypse turned the left hand into a blaster and fired multiple rounds — Or tried to.
Unfortunately, Lewis was unimpressed.
'Sleep indefinitely,'he sent the psychic command down unto Apocalypse's mind, bypassing all the other mutant's mental defenses — Instantly, the Grandfather of Mutants fell down, freefalling into the ground. 'I was only out of control of my body for 5 minutes, and my alter ego nearly destroyed the goddamn moon?!'
'What a nuisance,' Lewis thought, opening a portal to his private lab at B.L.A.K.E H.T Laboratories, and throwing Apocalypse unconscious body through. 'OMNIS, have Crystal come here to check out this place when I'm gone. I sense a few good things to study on this side of the Moon, and, earlier, I also sensed the mind of two mutants, likely Nathan Summers and his clone.'
[Command Acknowledge! Command Sent!]
'So, on this Earth, Apocalypse managed to catch both the clone of Nathan Summers and Nathan Summers himself, huh?' Lewis thought privately, before shaking his head dismissively. 'Doesn't matter. In the end, I'll make something monstrous out of all the Summers' brothers — And, yes, that includes Scott. Alex Summers may become a problem though, as he's dead on this Earth and I am not yet powerful enough to face Lady Death should she find an issue with me resurrecting someone like him, but soon, even that problem will be solved eventually.'
Locking onto the nearest target, Lewis took flight — A comet hundreds of billions of times faster than the speed of light towards a location 5,060,286 lightyears away.